25 reasons why you should buy the Serenity Collector’s Edition DVD

Oddly enough, there may be Browncoats out there who are on the fence about this. “I’ve already got the movie. In fact, I have it in fullscreen, widescreen, HD, PSP, and three different download formats, plus a couple of overseas versions. I need another one?”

Yes. Yes, you do. And here’s why.

1. More stuff you don’t need an all-regions DVD player to see. With this 2-disc set you’ll finally get the features that Europe and Australia got already (You don’t get the long Q&A Joss did in Australia, but you can catch that on Youtube). First up: The Extended Scenes (6 min. 45 sec.). Longer versions of some of the scenes in the movie, including more Mal and Inara.

2. You love buying new Serenity things, admit it. It makes you tingly.

3. Owning this frees you up to give away your old one and spread the word. Give it to your friends — assuming you have any that have resisted this long.

4. Longer “behind the scenes” feature. This is the Aussie cut, with more scenes (including some from the first cast table read).

5. Somewhere there is a network executive(s) who is still baffled at the refusal of this property to die, despite his, her, or their best efforts. Buy the DVD with a song in your heart.

6. “A Filmmakers Journey” (19 min. 49 sec.). How Joss took “Serenity” from a cancelled show to a new movie.

7. Better cover art. Way, way better cover art. It’s not 11th Hour quality, but few things in this world are and this is much classier. Not a llama in sight.

8. “Take a Walk on Serenity” (4 min.). Joss, Nathan, Alan, and Adam take us on a special tour of the Serenity ship. Worth it to see Jayne flying the ship.

10. The Session 416 videos (7 min. 52 sec). River’s scary-cool progression through the Academy. I loved seeing ’em online but I can’t wait to see ’em on a bigger screen.

11. Can you be sure this isn’t a different cut? Maybe Wash lives. Maybe Book and Inara finally realize they’re meant for each other (and where are the Book-Inara shippers? Let’s step up, people…). You know, you’d better get one, just to make sure.

12. New packaging. A Digipak case, one of the ones you see in special edition DVDs and TV DVD sets, with a gatefold, foldout design and often a slipcase. I’m thinking that means more photos, more text, all good.

13. Because how cool would it be to see Best Buy pulling out pallets of the thing to meet demand.

18. Support the troops. There are soldiers overseas that dsperately need something fun in their lives, and here you are with an extra movie lying around…

19. It is the responsibility of every patriotic American to boost our economy. Probably it’s the same for Canadians, even if their dollar is doing better than ours these days. In fact, Americans had better buy two DVDs.

21. Opportunities for random kindness. Hand your old copy to the first person you see on the street. Leave it on a bus, or in a restaurant booth.

22. Amazon rankings. At the moment, two weeks before it hits the streets, this re-release of a break-even movie based on a cancelled TV show is at #61 in DVD sales and moving up. After a summer of big-budget and largely disappointing movies, I want to see this at #1.

23. There’s a new front page at the official Serenity movie site, with new video clips. You don’t want them to have wasted all that work, do you? Go check it out.

24. Because you need a reason for a new shindig. DVD release party! Get the gang together and go move “Serenity” in front of “Wild Hogs” on the shelves at Wal-Mart.

25. And the big reason: “Serenity 2.” It is by no means definite, and is in fact one hell of a long shot, but there’s that possibility that massive sales of this DVD could lead to more Serenity in some form. From Joss’ interview at Comic Con with RopeofSilicon:

So give me hope for a Serenity II

JW: Hope for it probably rests with this DVD.

Well I’ll buy one.

JW: Actually I will too, people ask me why I would buy my own DVD and I tell them do you have any idea how awesome it is to buy your own movie?

So then you’re saying we’ve got a chance?

JW: Well it’s probably not being discussed in boardrooms right now, but the fact of the matter is if it makes enough money sooner or later they say “hey, this is money!”

Fan that I am, I don’t see another movie coming (although I would love to be wrong). But I could see more Serenity of some sort resulting. An animated series? Books? Radio shows? We’ll have to buy the DVD to find out. You can preorder it at Amazon for $18.99 or from TFAW.com for $21.58, or if you want to make a statement you can order it directly from Universal for $19.99.

16 Comments:

You forgot the 26th reason. #26 There MIGHT be a new EASTER EGG to find that has Mal kissing Inara or Nathan and Adam singing the Firefly theme drunk but wearing cunning hats…

Ben ·August 06, 2007

And Reason #27: Because you never know, there might be cool third-party inserts offering a bunch of new, previously unannounced Serenity-inspired goodies and special “DVD Buyers Only” deals. It could happen.

Huh. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to put them in any order other than chronological. (As opposed to the release order.)

Shmuel ·August 07, 2007

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to put them in any order other than chronological.

Structurally speaking, it doesn’t work right in chronological order. It’s the same structure you see on TV now and then — an opening and then cut to “earlier…” and then showing what led up to the opening.

Starting with Session 416, Second Excerpt prompts “WTF was that”, and then doubling back to slowly lead into Session 416, First Excerpt answers the question.

Anyway, “I’ll have to write it down” is basically the punchline of the piece (for lack of a better term), and that doesn’t work if you put Session 416, Second Excerpt at the end instead of the beginning.

I have to admit #2 is the most compelling reason for me, shallow obsessed fool that I am.

And word on the 11th Hour comment, even though the box art does look pretty nifty.

Wolf aka SpooForBrains ·August 08, 2007

“Somewhere there is a network executive(s) who is still baffled at the refusal of this property to die, despite his, her, or their best efforts.”

I suspect that was intended facetiously, but I would just like to point out that if network executive(s) who want a property to die are probably disinclined to spend the time and money to release a Collector’s Edition DVD sets nearly two years after the movie’s initial release.

You know, just sayin’.

stuart ·August 08, 2007

Of course, no “Network executives” spent any money on this Collector’s Edition, because it’s from a movie studio, not a television studio. I think the remark was to suggest that the people back at the FOX network might be scratching their heads.

Were there removed scenes with Mingo and Fanty that were in the Australian version and none of the others? The Region 2 often gets lumped in with the Aussie version, but ours doesn’t seem to have a good chunk of the stuff the Aussie one has…

Then again, I haven’t heard any region 2 information on the new Collector’s Edition at all. Yes, I’ll buy it for the cast commentary.

I just hope my perception of them talking too fast in the beginning is just a hallucination.